The wife of imprisoned Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza has expressed concern over his health, saying he is being kept in punitive solitary confinement in a Siberian prison despite having a serious medical condition resulting from when he was poisoned in 2015 and again in 2017.
Speaking at the House of Lords in London on November 15, where she accepted Liberal International's 2023 Prize for Freedom on her spouse's behalf, Yevgenia Kara-Murza said her husband has been held since September in a 1.5-meter-by-3-meter cell equipped with only a bed and a stool, while he needs permanent medical assistance and special physical exercise on a daily basis because of his diagnosis of polyneuropathy -- a serious disease affecting peripheral nerves.
Yevgenia Kara-Murza called her husband's placement in solitary confinement "torture," adding that he may face another assassination attempt while in custody.
"Because they have kept him isolated, it makes me very much concerned for his life," she said.
On November 1, guards in the prison in the city of Omsk placed Vladimir Kara-Murza in solitary confinement for the fifth time.
The 42-year-old was initially arrested in April 2022 after returning to Russia from abroad and charged with disobeying a police officer.
He was later charged with discrediting the Russian military, a charge stemming from Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and a Kremlin push to stamp out criticism of the subject. The treason charges were added later over remarks he made in speeches outside Russia that criticized Kremlin policies.
The former journalist, who holds both Russian and British passports, has spent years as a politician opposing Russian President Vladimir Putin and has lobbied foreign governments and institutions to impose sanctions on Russia and individual Russians for human rights violations.
Though no conclusive scientific proof has been publicly identified, Kara-Murza and his allies point to strong circumstantial evidence that he was deliberately targeted with poison. Russian authorities have denied any involvement in the alleged attacks.
Kara-Murza was an advocate for the U.S. Magnitsky Act, which sets out sanctions for human rights violators in Russia. In March, the United States sanctioned six people, including three judges, due to their role in Kara-Murza’s detention.
Kara-Murza is one of many opposition activists, reporters, and others who have been arrested and prosecuted under tightened legislation amid a growing Kremlin crackdown on civil society.
Over the past two decades, a series of poisonings, inside and outside of Russia, have targeted dissidents, former intelligence agents, and opposition activists.
